Far away in the western Pacific, in that labyrinth of coral reefs and
low, palm-rimmed isles floating between the blue of heaven and the
deeper blue of sea, known to the pajama-clad, ear-ringed traders as "the
Group," and to the outer world as Micronesia--here, one burning morning
there arrived a visitor from "Home," who descended, not from some tubby
bark or slant-masted schooner, but Godlike from the glorious stars
themselves--Christmas Day!
The Rev. Walter Kirke looked out moodily from beneath the eaves of his
basket-work house, and his heart sank as he gazed across the sweltering
strip of water, twenty miles wide, that divided the island of Apiang
from its neighbor, Tarawa. His brother in the Lord across the strait,
the perpetually unfortunate Titcombe (the Rev. J. B. Tracy Titcombe,
M.A., Cam.), had sent in a proa with a message of such urgency and need
that delay, let alone refusal, was utterly out of the question.
"The king has broken all his promises," wrote Titcombe, in a hand
illegible from distress and agitation. "He threatens to burn the new
church, flog the members, and spear personally the leading lights of
our infant congregation. Yesterday, on my remonstrating with him, he
gave me twenty-four hours to leave the island, calling me at the same
time a sting ray, a detached jellyfish--a white squid, together with
some other local expressions of a highly wounding and contemptuous
nature. The tiny fold is terrorized, and Thomas Najibika, my deacon and
right-hand man, is in hourly apprehension of a massacre. My wife and
little Kenneth are down with fever, and this, together with my halting
knowledge of the native language, has put me at such a disadvantage that
I have no alternative but to appeal to you. For Heaven's sake, please
come instantly and exert yourself on my behalf, or else we may lose
Tarawa for good, and put back the good work by a dozen years."
"We'll have to go, dear," said Kirke to his pretty wife.
"Yes, we'll have to go," she assented sadly.
She could not help feeling cross with the Titcombes for always muddling
things--a little unjustly, perhaps--for her own missionary path had ever
been so easy and untroubled. Mrs. Kirke was a woman of marked beauty,
whose sweet imperiousness, sympathy, humor, and tact made her the adored
of the islanders. She not only spoke native well, but with a zest and
sparkle, a silver ripple of irony, ridicule, and good-fellowship that
carried everything before it. No kings ever bothered Mrs. Kirke. Even
the redoubtable Tembinok, with forty boats full of armed savages, had
been stemmed in his Napoleonic career and turned back by her from his
projected invasion of Apiang--presenting the missionary's wife, on his
departure, with a gold-inlaid Winchester that was the apple of his eye.
"I shall make Karaitch smart for this!" she said vindictively. "I
sha'n't let him off with less than twenty tons of copra for my girls'
school; and he'll have to apologize, too, and swear on a shark's head to
behave for a year."
"We can't all have such intrepid little wives," said Kirke, putting his
arm fondly about her. Experience had shown him that in native questions
she was always as good as her word, and it was with a kind of proud
humility he conceded her the place he was so much less able himself to
fill. He had not the faintest apprehensions about the Tarawa matter. Ada
would bring the king to heel in fifteen minutes, and in twenty there
would be the dawn of a new peace, with stately apologies, gifts of
turtle and bonito hooks, endless and troublesomely idiomatic
compliments, and incidentally a little friction with the Titcombes, who
would certainly resent being saved so easily.
No, Kirke wasn't afraid of Karaitch. Ada would settle Karaitch out of
hand. What he dreaded was that twenty miles of water under the noonday
sun, and the problem of Daisy--Daisy, their little girl of eight, who
was playing so contentedly on the floor with the presents Santa Claus
had just brought her.
"Oh, Walter, I can't let Daisy go again!" cried Mrs. Kirke. "Last time
she nearly died in the boat, and you know she wasn't really herself for
weeks and weeks afterwards."
Daisy heard her name being spoken, and looked up. Her sleek little head
and round brown eyes gave her the look of a baby seal. Such a happy baby
seal that morning, with a five-shilling magic lantern, twelve biblical
slides, a dolly that could squeak in the most lifelike manner, and a
darling little chair!
"But leave her?" questioned Kirke, with a hopeless gesture of his hand.
"And that with the island full of mutineers, and Heaven only knows
to-day what deviltry and carousing?"
Mrs. Kirke thought awhile.
"Twenty miles over there--three hours," she said at last; "an hour to
straighten out the king--four hours; three back, makes seven. That means
being home by sundown. We can trust Nantok all right to take good care
of her, and then I'll get Peter to send down an armed guard."
Kirke acquiesced in silence. He was a tall, thin man, not over-clever,
whose fervent Christianity was strangely at variance with a
constitutional inclination to see the darker side of things. He
distrusted Nantok, distrusted the king's guard, felt a profound
apprehension of that jeering, boisterous mob of sailors, who pigged
together in Rick's old boatshed, and were numerous enough to defy every
law of the island. It was terrible to him to leave his little girl in
such company. Yet he recalled his last trip across the strait, when she
had fainted with the heat--fainted again and again--as they had
attempted, with such distress and agony, to screen her from a glare as
pitiless as a furnace. He remembered dipping her, naked, all but
lifeless, into the milkwarm water, till up from the transparent depths
the swift, bluish glimmer of a shark warned him to snatch her in.
Remembered the hopelessness of it, the terror, the despair, he himself
bending to an oar, and offering every inducement his mind could think of
to incite his crew to pull their hearts out. No, all that was a
nightmare to look back on--never, never to be repeated.
Daisy was called over and the situation explained to her. Like all only
children, living constantly in the society of her parents, and sharing
their talk and plans, she was precociously old for her age, and more
serious and thoughtful than a little tot ought to be. Though her lower
lip trembled, and her eyes flooded with tears, she put on a brave face
to it, and protested her willingness to remain with Nantok and be a good
little girl.
"And mamma and papa will be back at dusk; and if they are detained, you
mustn't be the least bit worried about them; and you'll let Nantok put
you to bed at eight; and if you wake up and feel frightened, you are to
remember the army outside, guarding you in your sleep like a little
princess!"
"And Dod, too," added Daisy piously, though inwardly pleased to have the
army as well.
"Oh, my lamb!" cried Mrs. Kirke, clasping her to her breast. "It breaks
mamma's heart to leave her little girl on Christmas Day!"
Altogether it was a damp moment in the Kirke family, and even the
missionary's eyes were suspiciously moist as he knelt beside his wife
and talked hurriedly about the magic lantern, and the dolly, and what a
jolly evening they'd all have when they got back from Tarawa.
Preparations were soon made. The whaleboat was got ready, and manned by
a stout crew of such recent Christians that the demons of the strait had
first to be appeased by two tins of salmon and six biscuit, paid
secretly in advance to Nebenua, the devil-priest. Then, when all was
ready, even to the breaker of brackish water, a forty-pound tin of
biscuit, two hundred fresh nuts, medicine chest, compass, and five
pounds of niggerhead tobacco by way of petty cash, the whole expedition
was tantalized and held back by the non-arrival of the guard, who were
frenziedly searching for their boots. Why the army was so ruthlessly
condemned to wear boots, is a question that was often asked and never
properly answered. Nobody else wore boots--not even the king; but the
military caste is proverbially dressy, and it is enough to say that the
armed forces of Apiang set immense store by their boots.
At last they arrived, boots and all, a straggling, hobbling party of
seven, with cartridge belts and rifles. Little Daisy was formally put in
their charge; solemn pledges were given and accepted; a keg of beef, to
be subsequently presented, was hedged about with innumerable
restrictions. That keg--like liberty--was to be at the price of eternal
vigilance. And then, when everything had been said, and explained, and
threatened, the whaleboat hoisted her anchor--a coral stone--and set a
straight course for Tarawa.
It was a long day--a very long day--quite the longest day in Daisy's
tiny life. She successively exhausted the magic lantern, the dolly, and
the chair. She went out and prattled with the army where they sprawled
under the lee of the kitchen, smoking endless _pandanus_ cigarettes. She
helped Nantok prepare lunch--a bowl of chocolate made with condensed
milk, and hot buttered toast. After lunch she had a nap with Nantok on
the mats, and after that again an exciting talk about the great massacre
on Tapatuea, where all Nantok's people had been killed during that
Kanaka Saint Bartholomew's. Then out to the army again, and checkers,
which the army played amazingly well, beating her so often that even
this pastime palled. Then----
Oh, what a sigh!
The sleek little seal was aweary, aweary. The house was so empty, so
still, and there was such a void in that aching baby heart! She went
into papa's room and cried on his bed. He would be drowned in the
strait; savage old Karaitch would shoot him with a gun; he would be
blown out to sea like Mr. Pettibone the beach-comber. The hot tears
scalded her cheeks. She had always liked Mr. Pettibone. Papa called him
a proff--proff--proff something, but he had always been so jolly, and
his red face and funny little blue eyes rose before her out of the mist.
She cried over the lost Pettibone; over Tansy the cat, that had died
from eating a lizard; over Nosey, her pet chicken, that Nantok had
killed by mistake one night for supper; cried over papa and mamma, far
away in the whaler--totaled up all the little sadnesses of her little
life, meting out tears to every one. And then, feeling greatly
refreshed, she went out on the front porch, and wondered what she should
do next.
Down the shore, about a mile away, there were others who found time less
heavy on their hands. At the Land We Live In, a one-roomed saloon which
catered for a permanent white population of thirteen, and a transient
one that varied from a cutter to a full-rigged ship--at the Land We Live
In Christmas was being celebrated in a rousing fashion. To begin with,
there were the mutineers of the _Lord Dundonald_, twenty-two strong,
with plenty of money still to spend. Their revolt against authority had
not been without some redeeming features, and an unbiased critic would
have found it hard to blame them. After twenty-seven days and nights at
the pumps of a four-masted sieve, the Lords had struck in a body, and
forced the captain to abandon the ship and set out in three boats for
Apiang. Here they double-dyed their crime by compelling the wrathful
master to pay them their wages to date, from six hundred and thirty-nine
pounds he had taken with him from a vessel he had fondly hoped to pump
to China. Captain Latimer, with the three mates, the carpenter, and one
of the hands, had sailed away south in the longboat, vowing yardarms and
a man-of-war, and when last seen was sinking over the horizon in the
direction of the Fiji Islands.
Well, here they all were in the Land We Live In, together with Tom
Holderson, Peter Extrum, Eddy Newnes, and Long Joe Kelly, all of Apiang;
Papa Benson, of Tarawa; Jones and Peabody, of Big Muggin; and crazy old
Jimmy Mathison, of nowhere in particular--unless it were the nearest gin
bottle; and it was a rip-roaring Christmas, and no mistake, with
bottled beer flowing like water, and songs and choruses and clog dances
and hornpipes; and Papa Benson (in earrings and pink pajamas) a-blowing
enough wind through his concertina to have sailed a ship. And there were
girls, too, seven or eight of them, in bright trade-cotton Mother
Hubbards--a bevy of black-eyed little heathen savages, who bore a hand
with the trays, and added their saucy laughter to the general gayety,
helping out Larry the barkeep as he drew unending corks or stopped to
wipe the sweat off his forehead, saying, "Genelmen, the drinks is on
Billy," or Tommy, or Long Joe, or whoever it was that was treating.
Suddenly, at the door, which had been kept shut to prevent the natives
from assembling and peering in--suddenly, at the door, there was heard a
faint, faint knock. The concertina stopped. Fritz, the Dutchman, said
"Hoosh!" and raised his pipe for silence. The knock was repeated. Quiet
descended on the Land We Live In. Larry looked up from his bottles, and
in a rough and belligerent voice called out, "Come in!"
The invitation was hesitatingly obeyed, and there stood Daisy Kirke on
the threshold, a sweet, faltering figure, with her guard, boots and all,
lined up in the roadway. Hardly a soul in the room knew there was a
little white girl on the island; and the sight of Daisy, with the red
ribbon in her hair, her dimity frock, her long stockings and pinafore,
was as startling as it was unexpected.
"Howdy-do, evver'body?" said she.
There was an embarrassed silence.
"I know you better than you do me," went on Daisy confidentially,
proving it with her forefinger. "That's Tommy, the cabin boy; and
yonder's Mr. Mathison, the beach-comber; and you"--indicating a giant of
a man with an aquiline nose and a square-cut beard--"you are Mr. Bob
Fletcher, the ringleader!"
A giggle of subdued merriment ran round the room. An instinctive respect
kept it within bounds, or perhaps it was Bob Fletcher's fierce and
warning look that cowed any incipient rowdyism. The brawny mutineer set
her on his knee, and, in a voice harshened by thirty years' service
before the mast, asked her deferentially if she fancied a glass of
syrup?
"No, thank you," said Daisy politely; and then, addressing everybody in
general, "papa and mamma's gone to Tarawa!"
"Now, if that ain't too bad!" put in Bob sympathetically.
"And so it just occurred to me," went on Daisy, "to do something nice to
surprise them when they came back."
A profound silence greeted this remark. The devil's love of holy water
is a craving compared to the amount of love lost between a South Sea
missionary and the rough white element that mocks his labors at every
turn. It was the custom of the Lord Dundonalds, moreover, to hoot the
Rev. Walter Kirke whenever they met him. It was a recollection of this
that made the present situation so piquant and humorous.
"Besides, it seems too bad," continued Daisy, "that the natives should
have such a fuss made over them, while all you white gentlemen are left
out in the cold. It must look queer to Dod, and I don't believe He likes
it!"
"Everything for the niggers--that's right," muttered Tom Extrum
bitterly, "and not even a six-months-old newspaper for the likes of us!"
"You don't look so werry wicked," said Daisy, taking in the room with a
comprehensive glance, and putting an arm around Mr. Bob's neck, as
though confident of having at least one friend among the company. "I
wonder if you wouldn't all like to come along to my house, and play with
my magic lantern, and--and--organize a Band of Hope?"
She was abashed by the roar of laughter that followed the proposal. Papa
Benson flung himself on the floor and rolled over and over. Long Joe
uttered whoops of delight. Even Mr. Bob shook with speechless mirth,
till the veins on his forehead stood out like strings. Never in all its
history was there such a hullabaloo in the Land We Live In. As the
rumpus died down something very like remorse overwhelmed the roisterers
as they saw Daisy's flushing, quivering little face, hot with
mortification.
It was Mr. Bob who sprang to the rescue before the brimming tears could
fall.
"I'm on!" he shouted, rising to his feet with unexpected enthusiasm.
"Now, then, boys, who says 'Aye, aye' for the Band of 'Ope?"
A good part of the crowd would have preferred to stay by their spree;
but so contagious is example and so sheeplike the sailor nature, that
the whole room fell in with Bob, and answered his call like one man.
He swung Daisy up on his shoulder, where, from that dizzy perch, she
looked back shyly at the noisy pack behind her. Secure in the conquest
of the ringleader, whom intuitively she felt stronger than the rest, and
kinder and more resolute, with a heart beneath his rough exterior as
simple and childlike as her own, she managed to keep up her courage in
spite of the loud, frightening laughter and the tipsy boisterousness and
horseplay that marked the inception of the Band of Hope. Her
satisfaction was suddenly checked, however, by the sight of the Kanaka
girls joining the procession and making as though to follow.
"No, they mustn't come!" she cried out jealously. "Please, Mr.
Mathison, tell them they mustn't come! This is to be for men only!"
"Turn them back!" thundered Bob. "Don't yer 'ear the little lady's
_h_orders? Scamper, ye jades!"
Papa Benson struck up a quickstep on the concertina, and, marching
beside Bob Fletcher, helped to lead the van. The mutineers,
beach-combers, and traders fell in two by two. The rear was brought up
by the guard, loutish, hobbling, and out of step, bearing their rusty
Springfields at all angles. In this fashion they made the missionary's
house, swarmed into the neat bare inclosure of coral sand, and invaded
the silent rooms.
A terrible irresolution was stealing over Daisy. Twelve slides,
representing the wanderings of Saint Paul, began to seem too trifling a
means of holding the attention of this enormous and expectant crowd.
Besides, it came over her with a shock that she was a little hazy about
Saint Paul; and then there were disturbing questions of sheets and
darkened windows, and how to make it work. It was with dismay, verging
on despair, that she saw the serried ranks of her recruits crowding the
room to bursting, and all regarding her with humorous anticipation. But
good Mr. Bob, holding her in his lap, and stroking her hair with an
enormous red hand, showed a most comforting disposition to himself take
the breach. At any rate, he roared for silence; told Mr. Mathison he'd
cut his liver out if he didn't belay with them there remarks, and
assumed a tone of authority that calmed the tumult of Daisy's
misgivings.
"Friends," he said, "and mates, and respected genelmen _h_all, we are
here, two and three gathered togetherlike, for the purpose of
_h_organizing a Band of 'Ope."
"Local Number One," interrupted Billy Dutton, the donkey-man, who had
had some trades'-union experience.
"Band of 'Ope, Local Number One," continued Mr. Bob, receiving the
suggestion in an accommodating spirit. "And it is with great pleasure I
propose the name of _h_our first president, Miss Daisy Kirke, of
Apiang."
Then, my stars, wasn't there a cheer! Daisy hung her head, nestled
closer to Mr. Bob, and felt all the joy of good works promptly bearing
fruit.
"I don't see no reason," went on Mr. Bob, "why a false modesty, that 'as
been my _h_unfailing 'andicap through life, should prevent me from
nominating myself as your _h_esteemed vice president. I do not wish to
seem a-soaring too 'igh, or reaching out for honors that belong to
_h_abler 'eads nor mine; but I'll take the sense of the meeting in a
kindly spirit, and will abide peaceable by a show of 'ands!"
When the applause had subsided, Billy Dutton sprang up, and wanted to
know "what about a recording seckitary?"
"I don't see no 'arm in the honorable genelman _h_assuming the job
'isself," said Mr. Bob, "if 'e thinks 'e's sufficient of a speller, and
won't run the band into 'orrible extravagances for 'igh-priced wines and
luxuries. The assessments of this band is going to be low, and the diet
plain. Who says Brother Dutton ain't the man for the place? Is it you,
Mr. Riley, I see raising your fist agin him? Oh, only to ax a question.
Well, one thing at a time, Brother Riley. Does the meeting _h_endorse
Mr. Willum Dutton for recording seckitary?"
The meeting did, vociferously and with cheers. Daisy ran and got her
slate for the recording seckitary, who thereupon (after first inscribing
the names of the office bearers in a shaky print) began to draw a
wonderful picture of a pirate ship.
"Afore listening to the plans of our valued president," said Mr. Bob, "I
propose myself to _h_offer up a few general remarks on 'Ope! Me and 'Ope
is old friends, genelmen. We set sail together from the port of London,
'Ope and I, when I was a bright-faced boy that 'igh! We've bunked in
together, fair weather and foul, coming on this thirty year. We 'ave set
in our time, me and 'Ope, on the bottom of a capsized schooner, ore
laden out of Mazatlan, with our tongues 'anging out like the tails of
some vallyble new kind of a black dorg. 'Ope and I took the Chainy
coast once on a chicken coop. 'Ope and I, when we 'ad the dollars, blew
them in right royal. 'Ope and I, when we 'adn't none, tightened our
belts and cheered each other _h_up. Looking back over all them years, I
want to stand _h_up and testify right 'ere to the best friend of the
sailorman, bar none, and p'r'aps the _h_only one he ever truly 'ad--and
that's 'Ope, God bless her!"
Amid the ensuing uproar, which jarred the walls of that prim missionary
residence like an explosion of dynamite, spilling plates off dressers
and cock-billing texts, and arresting the astonished clock at four
forty-six, little Daisy was trying to nerve herself to address the
assembled company. The unforeseen docility of the band had put new ideas
in that sleek, baby-seal head. Odds and ends of tracts and storybooks
recurred to her. Infantile ambitions awoke and clamored. But it was
daunting, just the same, to confront those rows of eyes, and those great
big, unshaved, shaggy-looking faces, all keenly waiting for her to
speak.
"Now, then, little lady," said the vice president, "'ere's your Band of
'Ope, a-panting to set its 'and to the plow!"
Daisy cleared her throat. Pride and timidity struggled with each other
in that eager little countenance. Had it not been for an encouraging
squeeze from Mr. Bob, who knows but what she might have burst into
tears, and disgraced herself before the whole band. But the squeeze,
coming exactly at the right time, averted so mortifying a catastrophe.
"My dear friends," began Daisy, catching with unconscious mimicry some
of the rounded tones of her father's voice--"my dear, kind friends!"
"Well, go on," cried Mr. Bob; "that's a swell start! That's the way to
wake them up!"
"Hear! hear!" (This from a dozen places.)
"I have called you togevver," went on Daisy bravely, "so we might enjoy
the travels of Saint Paul, which belongs to the magic lantern Santa
Claus brought me this morning for Christmas, because I'm such a good
little girl. Saint Paul was a kind of a sailor, too, and got
shipwrecked, like Mr. Bob, in an awful storm. I used to know all about
Saint Paul, but somehow I've got mixed up about him since. Perhaps one
of our members will oblige, so we'll know what the slides are about when
we get _w_ound to them?"
There was a profound silence. No one volunteered. Billy Dutton, looking
up from the pirate ship, to which he was adding some finishing touches,
said he was afeared the president would find them a sad, ignorant lot of
ignorpotammusses.
"Then we'll just have to get along without Saint Paul," said Daisy
regretfully. "Perhaps it is as well, too, for Bands of Hope isn't only
for amoosement, but to do good, and help uvvers, and carry the glad
tidings right and left into the darkest corners of the earth."
"Gee-whilikins!" exclaimed Sammy Nesbit, "where's this we're fetching up
to, mates?"
"Silence! _H_order! Shut your face! Dry up, there, Sammy!" roared the
Band of Hope.
"I was finking," went on the president, confidentially and undisturbed,
"why a nice little surprise for papa wouldn't be as good an idea as any.
It's an awful long way to Tarawa and back, and papa's never been werry
strong since the fever he got in New Guinea, before he married mamma
with Mr. Chalmers."
"Wot sort of a surprise _h_exactly?" asked the vice president with an
expression of some doubt.
"Putting up mottoes _w_ound the walls," returned Daisy, "and green
branches and palm leaves and texes and Merry Christmas, like grandpapa's
in Devonshire, when I was a little tiny winy girl. And papa will be so
pleased and happy and surprised that I know he'll just love it, and
won't never feel tired at all!"
The Band of Hope, who seemed given to singular and inextinguishable fits
of laughter, promptly went off into another paroxysm; and laughter with
the Band of Hope was no drawing-room performance, no polite titter
behind an upraised hand. When the Band of Hope laughed, it rolled on the
floor, beat its clenched fists against neighboring backs, screamed,
huzzaed, cat-called, kicked pajama legs in the air, and shook the
pictures off the walls. Mr. Bob seemed to be the only one who knew how
to behave, but even Mr. Bob grew crimson in the face, and choked, and
opened his mouth till you could see way down his froat.
"Genelmen," he said, when at last he had somewhat recovered, "you've
listened to our _h_orders, and I'll _h_only remind you that them that
_h_ain't with us is agin us, as Saint Paul says. Back-sliders and goats
may return to the bar, but me and the fleecy sheep is agoing to see this
thing through, and do our dooty _h_under the regilations by Board of
Trade _h_appointed. Goats, as I said afore, will kindly rise and step
out!"
"We ain't no blooming quitters," spoke up Billy Dutton. "Goats, nothing,
you wall-eyed old ram! You want to cinch all the texes for yesself, and
make a running with our lovely president. But we are on to you, Bob
Fletcher, and I voice the sentimomgs of the whole band when I says with
Saint John, in the forty-first epistle to the Proosians, 'Wot you put
your fist to, that do it with all yer might!'"
"Aye, aye!" chorused the band with boisterous approval.
"Then _h_up and work, you devils!" exclaimed the vice president. "Pull
out that table, Mack; and you, there, bear a 'and to 'elp 'im, 'Enery.
Set _h_up the little chair, Williams! Easy with Saint Paul, you, Tommy,
or you'll crack him sure--and lay the whole caboodlum on the shelf,
_h_out of 'arm's way! Lively, lads--lively!"
Bob lifted Daisy in his arms, and carrying her to the table, installed
her comfortably in the little chair.
"Captain's bridge," he said; "and if anything ain't right, or just
_h_according to your _h_idears, you sing out to the lower deck, loud and
'earty; only mind you don't get _h_excited and spill orf!"
Daisy's eyes danced, and her timidity all vanished as she saw the jovial
and obedient band grouping together and hotly discussing the proposed
decorations. Distances were measured with tarry thumbs. A party of six
was told off to climb the cocoa palms across the road; while another,
shouting and hallooing like schoolboys, was dispatched to Holderson's
station to get sinnet. There was a noisy wrangle over spelling. "I never
seed it like that," said one, squinting over Billy's slate, "and I don't
believe nobody else ever did neither." "For the love of Mike," roared
another, "let's stick to them words we're all agreed on, and keep off of
that thorological grass!" "Man and boy, I've been to sea this thirty
years," exclaimed Mr. Bob with crushing vehemence, "and there warn't no
T in Christmas then, and there ain't now! C-R-I-S-S-M-A-S, you
son of a sea cook, and I know _h_every letter of it like the palm of me
'and!"
In a corner, dispassionately aloof from all the bustle and argument,
Papa Benson, that venerable dandy of the pink pajamas, pumped up the
concertina, and drew melodiously on his ancient repertoire. To the
inspiring strains of "In Her Hair She Wore a White Camellia," "Oh,
Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out To-night?" and the "Mulligatawny
Guards," the good work progressed with sailorlike speed and system. The
bare, dreary room grew gay with greenery. Stitched to the matting walls
with sinnet there appeared letters, words, and finally complete
inscriptions: PEAS ON ERTH AND GOODWILL TOWARDS MAN; DAISY
KIRKE, THE SEAMAN'S STAR; MERRY CRISSMAS, and GOD BLESS OUR HOM.
Daisy clapped her hands with delight, and did not stint her praise or
approval. Occasionally she would stand up on the "bridge" to anxiously
point out a crooked letter, or call attention to a doubtful spelling;
and her little heart overflowed with satisfaction at the brisk "Aye,
aye, Miss!" that greeted her smallest criticism. Mr. Bob worked like a
horse, and not only made things jump, but kept a sharp watch as well on
the unguarded utterances of his mates. Once, at some remark of Mr.
Tod's, he flared up like a lion, and stepping close to Mr. Tod, with
his fist clenched, said, "Drop that, Toddy--d'ye 'ear--drop it!" and
stared at him so fierce and splendid, that Mr. Tod fell back and mumbled
something about "No offense," and "It kinder ripped out unbeknownst,
Bob, old cock!"
By the time it was all finished dusk was falling. The room had been
beautifully swept out, and likewise the porch, and Mr. Bell was in the
act of dancing a fascinating clog to Papa Benson's "Soldier's Joy" on
the concertina, when Nantok rushed in, shouting that Mr. Kirke was
coming. And, indeed, she had no sooner given the news than it was
confirmed by the whaler's crew, whose voices could be heard far across
the water, lustily singing at their paddles.
A sort of consternation descended on the Band of Hope. "Hell!" exclaimed
Mr. Dutton, and dropped his broom with a crash. There was a mad scurry
to escape. The little president was forgotten in the pellmell rush, and
from the height of her table she perceived her friends flying away
without a word of farewell. No, not all. The faithful Mr. Bob, quiet and
masterful even in that panicky moment of the missionary's return, came
up to her, and taking her hand in both his own, nuzzled it long and
lovingly against his cheek.
"Little Daisy," he said, and his voice sounded kind of strange and
different, "I want you to give a message to your pa--a message from me,
you say to 'im--and that is, 'e'll never 'ave no more trouble with the
boys down the shore. And if any of them gets fresh, or gives 'im any
lip, or 'oots--you tell 'im this, Daisy--I'll break every bone of 'is
body, so 'elp me, Moses. And it _h_ain't because of 'im, or anythink the
like of that, but because he's the father of the darlingest little gal
that _h_ever breathed, and the sweetest and the dearest."
Daisy flung her arms around his neck and kissed him; and as her face
pressed his, rough as mahogany and hairy as a mat, she felt it all wet
with tears.
Daisy was still wondering what it was that could make Mr. Bob cry, when
he suddenly let her go, and walked out of the door in his funny, heavy,
lurching sea walk, looking straight before him, and unheeding the "Happy
Noo Year, Mr. Bob!" she called after him in a pitiful little voice.
"Poor Mr. Bob!" said Daisy to herself; and then, happening to put her
hand to her hair, she discovered that the red ribbon was gone!
"He must have stole it for a keepsake when I was kissing him!" she
exclaimed. "Oh, you bad, bad Mr. Bob!"
But her eyes sparkled nevertheless, as she ran out to greet papa and
mamma.